Susan starts her day by jogging to the edge of town, cutting back through a cornfield for an herbal tea at the downtown Starbucks and heading home for a shower. It sounds like a healthy morning routine, but Susan is in fact exposing herself to a rogue’s gallery of chemicals: pesticides and herbicides on the corn, plasticizers in her tea cup, and the wide array of ingredients used to perfume her soap and enhance the performance of her shampoo and moisturizer. Most of these exposures are so low as to be considered trivial, but they are not trivial at all—especially considering that Susan is six weeks pregnant.

Scientists have become increasingly worried that even extremely low levels of some environmental contaminants may have significant damaging effects on our bodies—and that fetuses are particularly vulnerable to such assaults. Some of the chemicals that are all around us have the ability to interfere with our endocrine systems, which regulate the hormones that control our weight, our biorhythms and our reproduction. Synthetic hormones are used clinically to prevent pregnancy, control insulin levels in diabetics, compensate for a deficient thyroid gland and alleviate menopausal symptoms. You wouldn’t think of taking these drugs without a prescription, but we unwittingly do something similar every day.

An increasing number of clinicians and scientists are becoming convinced that these chemical exposures con­tribute to obesity, endometriosis, diabetes, autism, allergies, cancer and other diseases. Laboratory studies—mainly in mice but sometimes in human sub­jects—­have demonstrated that low levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in­duce subtle changes in the developing fetus that have profound health effects in adulthood and even on subsequent generations. The chemicals an expecting mother takes into her body during the course of a typical day may affect her children and her grandchildren.

This isn’t just a lab experiment: we have lived it. Many of us born in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol, or DES, a synthetic estrogen prescribed to pregnant women in a mistaken attempt to prevent miscarriage. An article in the June issue of the New England Journal of Medicine called the lessons learned about the effects of fetal human exposures to DES on adult disease “powerful.”

In the U.S., two federal agencies, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are responsible for banning dangerous chemicals and making sure that chemicals in our food and drugs have been thoroughly tested. Scientists and clinicians across diverse disciplines are concerned that the efforts of the EPA and the FDA are insufficient in the face of the complex cocktail of chemicals in our environment. Updating a proposal from last year, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey introduced legislation this year to create the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. If enacted, chemical companies would be required to demonstrate the safety of their products before marketing them. This is perfectly logical, but it calls for a suitable screening-and-testing program for endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The need for such tests has been recognized for more than a decade, but no one has yet devised a sound testing protocol.

Regulators also cannot interpret the mounting evidence from laboratory studies, many of which use techniques and methods of analysis that weren’t even dreamed of when toxicology testing protocols were developed in the 1950s. It’s like providing a horse breeder with genetic sequence data for five stallions and asking him or her to pick the best horse. Interpreting the data would require a broad range of clinical and scientific experience.

That’s why professional societies representing more than 40,000 scientists wrote a letter to the FDA and EPA offering their expertise. The agencies should take them up on it. Academic scientists and clinicians need a place at the table with government and industry scientists. We owe it to mothers everywhere, who want to give their babies the best possible chance of growing into healthy adults.

This article was originally published with the title Toxins All around Us.

12 Comments

1. 1. anamark 10:37 AM 9/25/11

   Theo Colborn has been writing about chemical exposure for years now. Anybody interested in a better understanding of toxins and their cumulative effect in our bodies please check her book Our stolen future, for sound everyday advice The toxic consumer (Karen Ashton & Colborn) is a good place to start.

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2. 2. jpmyers 02:05 PM 9/29/11

   Pat Hunt has written a very thoughtful essay here about a serious issue that is highly likely to be adversely affecting the health of many Americans. People, including many medical professionals, who haven't been tracking recent advances in the environmental health sciences are unlikely to be aware of the strong scientific evidence upon which Dr. Hunt builds her case. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can alter the ways that genes behave at extremely low doses. Fetal exposures at those levels, well-within the range of human exposure, can lead to serious health problems, even though the immediate impact of the exposure will only be evident using tools from modern molecular genetics and epigenetics. They play out over the lifetime of the affected individual. Unfortunately, our regulatory agencies use outdated methods to test the safety of chemicals. As a result, many EDCs are used in everyday products, leading to human exposures as Dr. Hunt described. And scientists like Hunt, bringing modern research tools to the challenge, are demonstrating plausible links between these exposures and a wide array of human diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, learning disabilities, infertility and several cancers. The good news is that if we act on this science, and begin removing some of these materials from commerce, we can help people be healthier. You can get a sample of this new science here: http://bit.ly/nzeNa9
   J.P. Myers, Ph.D.
   Chief Scientist
   Environmental Health Sciences

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3. 3. lvandenberg 02:42 PM 9/29/11

   Thanks to Dr. Hunt for this well-written piece about the ubiquity of endocrine disruptors. As more and more chemicals are found to have endocrine disrupting activities, our knowledge of their health effects continues to expand. For consumers, and especially pregnant women worried about the effects of these chemicals on their unborn children, this is a tremendous burden. These chemicals lurk in products and environments we often consider safe - who could imagine that a jog around town, a walk through a cornfield, a cup of herbal tea at the local Starbucks or a shower in your own home would expose you to dozens, or perhaps hundreds of chemicals? It is not appropriate to ask all consumers to become chemists in order to choose which chemicals or products are safe; as Dr. Hunt rightly points out, our regulatory system should be doing a better job to screen out chemicals with endocrine disruptor activity.
   
   Contrary to what many industry advocates might say, scientists are not trying to cause panic among consumers. We don't believe that people should live in bubbles, afraid to interact with the outside world. We also don't believe that "everything is dangerous!!!" Instead, we use the tools of science to study the effects of these chemicals on animals and humans, and our work has clearly shown that there are adverse effects of low dose exposures. Thousands of peer-reviewed published studies support Dr. Hunt's statements that these chemicals can cause numerous diseases, even when they are used as intended, and even when exposures are at minute levels. This science should not be ignored.
   
   Laura N Vandenberg, PhD

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4. 4. Nancy.alderman@yale.edu 03:58 PM 9/29/11

   This is a well written piece crying out, yet once again, for government to begin to protect us from the chemical exposures that surround us in our daily lives.
   
   The Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) has looked at people’s “body burdens ” and have found 221 different chemicals in our blood and our urine.
   
   A study by the Environmental Working Group showed babies can also carry burdens of over 200 industrial chemicals prior to their birth. Of these contaminants it is known that some of them are carcinogenic, some are toxic to the brain and nervous system and others can cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal studies.
   
   What does all this mean? There is a strong body of supporting science that suggests that fetal exposures to industrial chemicals are contributing to adverse health effects in the human population.
   
   As examples of children’s health issues we can look at the rise of a few chronic diseases found in children today.
   
   ASTHMA
   According to the Centers for Disease Control, Asthma rates have been rising continually for the past 30 years. For instance, in 1980 the United States had 1 out of every 30 children with asthma. In 2010, there was 1 out of every 10 children with asthma. This is an astounding rise in disease.
   
   OBESITY RATES
   More than one in six adolescents ages 12 to 19 were overweight in the United States in 2003-2004, more than triple the rate found 25 years earlier.
   
   ALLERGIES
   A recent survey published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology revealed that the rate of peanut allergies in children has tripled just over the past decade. In 1997 0.6 percent of children were allergic to peanuts. If we look at 2008 – a mere 10 years later – we find there are 2.1 percent of children allergic to peanuts or tree nuts- almost 3 times as many children in just a decade.
   
   BEHAVIOR DISORDERS
   Rates of attention deficit-hyper activity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis increased an average of 3% per year from 1997 to 2006 --- ever increasing to an average of 5.5% per year from 2003 to 2007. In 2007 - almost 10% of America’s children aged 4-17 years of age are or have been diagnosed with ADHD.
   
   How have these rises in children’s diseases happened?
   These rises are simply too fast to lie at the feet of genetic changes, and therefore we must look more closely at present day environmental exposures.
   Our legal framework that is meant to protect all of us -- in fact has failed us. It is time for action – we cannot afford to wait any longer.
   

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5. 5. Sonya Lunder 05:38 PM 9/29/11

   Thank you Pat Hunt for eloquently summarizing the magnitude of the problem we face and the path forward. Our task is to put the best scientific minds to work--gauging the risks posed by toxic chemicals and identify ways to clean up the environment and protect health.
   
   In the meantime, people like Sarah who are concerned about the personal impact of toxic chemicals during pregnancy can check out EWG's tipsheet on the subject http://www.ewg.org/minoritycordblood/home

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6. 6. mtesla 11:49 AM 10/1/11

   We need to have a better understanding on how smart, educated scientists become so co-opted by their own need to belong? to maintain status? to ensure their comfortable living? that they close their eyes to research that shows problems with their industry's product, no matter what the cost to the public. It's been seen over and over, from chemicals to EMF to agriculture, etc.
   
   It appears that the science of PR is far more developed than an understanding of how knowledgeable people turn against the public good. And how to innoculate future scientists against this toxic mindset.
   
   In American culture especially, an attitude of reasonable precaution is immediately branded "alarmism" and "creating panic." If precaution causes panic, it's because people feel like they have been kept in the dark--give them the facts at the beginning and they can make their own decisions. Perhaps more education of the public is needed on how to handle potential risks, and how to get emerging information on those risks. Clearly the news is often industry influenced or sensationalistic, lurching the public one way and then another.
   
   Unfortunately, many in our country believe that our federal agencies are protecting us and properly alerting us to risks, but sadly they are also under the influence. There's no insurance against a lack of good advice.
   
   

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7. 7. Stage3 01:53 PM 10/11/11

   There are so many ways that the human body can be impacted by the chemicals in the products we consume not just for food and hygiene but within the environment we breathe or live in. Some have listed various ailments, but most importantly are the cancers. If you compare the numbers, statistically, of those that developed cancer in the 60's and 70's to now, they are phenomenal. This is a key indicator of what is happening, in addition to the dramatic climate changes that have occurred over the same time period. We need scientists in the FDA and EPA who can interpret the new science quickly and effectively. People must also educate themselves, especially those who have gone to college and have degrees. People need to step up, their lives and the future depend on it.

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8. 8. Unksoldr 02:04 PM 10/11/11

   We are daily exposed to all these chemicals and yet some industry paid scientists want to make the laughable claim that 2nd hand cigarette is what causes many cancers in otherwise healthy non-smokers. Until you can find a test group that has never used deodorant, cologne, perfume, etc and have for the past 3 generations, at the least, only inhaled pure oxygen this claim CANNOT be proven. We presently inhaled twice as much carbon dioxide with every breath than we evolved to breath, yet no one thinks this can have any effect on our behavior. These people are wrong.

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9. 9. niedrinr 06:48 AM 10/12/11

   As a recently retired hematologist/oncologist, I have been concerned about toxins via skin absorption for years. We now have many prescription meds (ie morphine, fentanyl, estrogen, etc) which are potently absorbed with significant systemic effects with a very small surface exposed. The heavy use of cosmetics primarily by women must result in daily absorption of hydrocarbon-based chemicals. Little if anything has been published studying levels in serum or urine. I've always felt that we shouldn't put much on our skin we're not willing to drink. The exposure to women in particular is much more than experienced running through a cornfield.
   
   Bob Niedringhaus MD, FACP

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10. 10. BrainWorld in reply to niedrinr 11:36 PM 10/12/11

    Dr. Niedringhaus you raised a very important point about cosmetics that is only rarely addressed and deserves more attention by the public and our lawmakers. The FDA allows coal tar dye derivatives (FD&C colors) to be used in cosmetics that are not permitted because of their toxicity in food, which they fraudulently justify on the false assumption that cosmetics are never ingested but only applied to skin surfaces that allow zero absorption. They stand by this policy as if not one of them has ever closely observed a woman wearing lipstick before or heaven forbid kissed one. I so wish more women would realize how much they are needlessly contaminating themselves and their loved ones with cosmetics and just stop but even when they know it they are under such intense cultural pressures that they often continue to use them anyway. To me it's heartbreaking we have created such a cruel culture for women that they must poison themselves to feel accepted.
    
    It's not just the FD&C colors in cosmetics either but as you mentioned hydrocarbons (i.e. petroleum products) and I wonder about inhaled dusts from those colored powders women apply to their faces with fat brushes either having direct toxicity or mechanical irritation effects like silicosis. "Oh but I only use natural mineral powders never any artificial chemicals" I often hear from women who don't realize that asbestos is a natural mineral too and that there are many both natural and artificial poisons. And that just inhaling fine dust made of anything insoluble is unwise even if it's only baby powder.
    
    Dr. Niedringhaus you mentioned some drugs which can be "potently absorbed with significant systemic effects with a very small surface exposed". Are you talking about less than a square centimeter, or what?

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11. 11. eco-steve 05:52 PM 10/15/11

    If mankind is wiped out by sterility, there will be nobody to cry about it!

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12. 12. delfstrom 04:03 PM 8/30/12

    Given that this is published in a scientific magazine, I am surprised that the editors have demonstrated an ignorance of the meaning of the word "toxin", which is a substance that is produced by an organism, such as spider venom. Lead, mercury, man-made pesticides and chemicals are NOT toxins. They are poisons or toxic chemicals.

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